NEW HANOVER COUNTY –– The engineering and technology teacher at Noble Middle School is facing charges for assault on a female.
Terry Wayne Hughes, 64, was arrested just after midnight Dec. 2 at his property in the 1400 block of Waterway Court. An arrest warrant alleges Hughes struck the woman’s neck with his hand and pushed her in an attempt to get his phone back. The female fell to the floor and Hughes allegedly “placed his hand on her throat as leverage to take back the cellphone.”
Hughes was suspended by New Hanover County Schools with pay, earning $57,200 annually, as of Dec. 3. He was hired in August 2018 as the school’s CTE teacher.
Under state law, suspension with pay may be issued to teachers when “additional investigation of the facts is necessary and circumstances are such that the teacher should be removed immediately from the teacher’s duties.”
The superintendent is required to notify the board of education and the teacher within two days of the action and the reasons for it.
This is the second arrest of a Noble Middle employee in the past year. In April the school’s assistant principal David Bostian was charged for having an alleged inappropriate relationship with a student in the early 1990s. Hours after his arrest, he committed suicide by gun in his home.
In September a Myrtle Grove Middle teacher assistant, Sequana Brown, resigned and was charged for misdemeanor child abuse and simple assault for an alleged physical altercation with a 12-year-old boy on the school’s campus. The long-time volleyball coach at Hoggard High, Ronnie Lynn Strickland, was arrested in April for alleged sexual activity by a custodian in the 1980s.
Prior to that, several other high-profile arrests of NHCS’ employees were made involving sex crimes against students from 2018 to 2020.
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